And What Happens To Them After That?

Sudhama Ranganathan – (Indy Bay Media) – May 29, 2013 – Rape is the last thing we want to think about when we consider our military service members. It just seems like the antitheses of everything they are supposed to stand for, we as a nation are supposed to stand for and what we want others to see when they encounter our military. We want to project strength, but also the best possible representation of the nation that is known for protecting and helping to promote freedoms, liberties and rights worldwide. We want people to think of us in the best possible light and as a people that respect others, both for what we have in common and our differences.

Unfortunately, over the past twelve or thirteen years our military, plus our intelligence services and associated publicly contracted private security and private intelligence contractors, have built a reputation for all manner of sex related hijinks and troubles. They have been known to trade in flesh, as well as to be involved in rape, pedophilia and pederasty.

Contractors, trained during their own US military tenure, have had all manner of problems regarding these things. One company in particular, DynCorp has in fact proven, through a repeated and consistent pattern of such instances, to have a culture within their organization that tolerates such behavior.

As the Huffington Post reported, “Put bluntly, DynCorp was involved in a sex slavery scandal in Bosnia in 1999, with its employees accused of rape and the buying and selling of girls as young as 12. DynCorp, hired to perform police duties for the UN and aircraft maintenance for the US Army, were implicated in prostituting the children, whereas the company’s Bosnia site supervisor filmed himself raping two women. A number of employees were transferred out of the country, but with no legal consequences for them.

“This was one of two cases involving DynCorp and sexual scandal in Bosnia. The other, involved air plane mechanic Ben Johnston who sued DynCorp, alleging he was sacked because he had uncovered evidence that DynCorp employees were involved in ‘sexual slavery. […]

“in a much less noticed case, in October 2004 it was revealed that DynCorp contract workers operating at Tolemaida Air Base in Colombia distributed a video in which they could be observed sexually violating underage girls from the town of Melgar. This video was even sold on the main streets of Bogotá. Nonetheless, the Lawyers’ Collective of Colombia has not learned of any criminal investigation undertaken in relation to these acts involving minors. According to follow-up work carried out by the Lawyers’ Collective it was discovered that one of the minors involved in the videos committed suicide some time after the publication of them.

“Now, courtesy of WikiLeaks, DynCorp can look forward to a new round of ridicule and denunciations.

“As first reported by the British Guardian newspaper, on June 24, 2009 the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan sent a cable to Washington, under the signature of Karl Eikenberry, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, regarding a meeting between Assistant Chief of Mission Joseph Mussomeli and Afghan Minister of Interior Hanif Atmar. Among the issues discussed was what diplomats delicately called the ‘Kunduz DynCorp Problem.’ Kunduz is a northern province of Afghanistan.

“The problem was this:

“1. In a May 2009 meeting interior minister Hanif Atmar expresses deep concerns that if lives could be in danger if news leaked that foreign police trainers working for US commercial contractor DynCorp hired ‘dancing boys’ to perform for them.

“As the ever zealous Ms. Sparky has already noted:

”The tradition of Bacha Bazi “boy play” is alive and well in Afghanistan. Young boys are bought and sold, dressed up like women and forced to dance, at men only parties. Many times they are then raped or killed. …

“According to Wikipedia :

“Bacha Bazi (translated from Persian: literally ‘playing with children’), also known as bacchá ‘ (from the Persian bacheh “child, young man, calf”) is a practice recognized as sexual slavery and child prostitution in which prepubescent children and adolescents are sold to wealthy or powerful men for entertainment and sexual activities. This business thrives in southern Afghanistan, where many men keep them as status symbols. Some of the individuals involved report being forced into sex. The authorities are barely attempting to crack down on the practice as ‘un-Islamic and immoral acts’ but many doubt it would be effective since many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders.

“For more on dancing boys see this PBS Frontline documentary ‘The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan,’ broadcast last year.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-isenberg/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394.html)

DynCorp also got caught using US taxpayer purchased armored vehicles to transport hookers to the Green Zone in Iraq in 2004. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/29/us-military-contractor-us_n_99175.html)

As for people actively serving, the record, as it turns out, is much different than the image of the ‘officer and gentleman’ many of us had. The percentage of people admitted into the military from the civilian world that have had a record of rape and other sex offenses, is much higher than the amount of like people in the civilian world. The problem has had more light shone on it recently, yet according to the military itself the problem is getting even worse.

The victims in the military are most often women that have served our nation and been proud to do so, and have in turn made us proud. Yet, when they report the rapes, they get ignored, transferred, harassed, demoted, dishonorably discharged, harassed out and even jailed for adultery. What kind of people raised the men that have put these victims through that, both during the crime, then afterwards?

The victims of child rape and molestation are often kidnapping victims. Many have been sold into slavery by their own families. Others still are orphans with nowhere else to go and no way out, once they are in, however it is they got involved in the first place. When these children are raped by adult males and their anuses and genitalia ripped to the point of needing stitches or more serious surgery, they are simply discarded and allowed to die horrible painful deaths alone in the streets or in the bushes. Children dying horrible infections and bleeding to death from their anuses and genitalia all alone with no one to care for them, that is what these men leave behind when they are finished with their rapes.

What is even more troubling is that the very people that were supposed to be protecting the average folks and victims, have done all they can to ignore the issues. President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and US Attorney General Eric Holder all have worked hard to do nothing about the problems with Secretary Clinton saying absolutely nothing and even renewing DynCorp’s contracts after all this. Why doesn’t she protect women and children? What if that was Chelsea? Has she even thought about that?

When asked about it the State Department under her guidance simply transparently ignored the issue. (http://www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com/statedepartment.html) Just how much of a butt in a seat doing nothing was she? Did she not know about this too, even though president Obama lightly acknowledged he knew of the issue himself? (http://juneauempire.com/donna-cassata/2013-05-08/obama-no-tolerance-sexual-assault#.UaYOblPp7tl) How can she be strong enough for leading the country, if she can’t’ even, and/ or is afraid to, protect tiny children? No matter what she says from here on out, her record clearly shows she did nothing.

Let us all think of the victims of military and defense contractor sexual misconduct and abuse. For it is they that have to live with it, while the politicians pretend they didn’t know, spin it and turn a blind eye.